


Friendship, Love, Sex, and other Unavoidable Disasters

by Molly



Category: NSYNC
Genre: M/M, Popslash - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-09-18
Updated: 2008-09-18
Packaged: 2017-10-01 23:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Molly/pseuds/Molly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>In which Chris turns Justin gay. </i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship, Love, Sex, and other Unavoidable Disasters

"Chris. _Chris._"

It was the fifth time Justin had said it and Chris still wasn't looking at him. He was looking at Justin's television set, which was great, flat plasma display, huge and clear and really, a great TV, probably the best TV Justin had ever owned. But it wasn't actually on at the moment so it was just a big blank picture hanging on his wall over a bank of speakers and components and more speakers and things Justin didn't even know the name of, and so there was no reason for Chris to be looking at it except that he was ignoring Justin. He couldn't even pretend to be fanatically interested in something interesting. That was how much Chris sucked.

"Chris!" Justin threw the remote control at him, hard, and scored: right in the chest. "Are you not talking to me? What? What did I do?"

Chris grabbed the remote from where it had fallen in his lap and tried to turn the TV set on. It didn't work. It was all part of The Great Vacation Plan of 2004, in accordance with which he was supposed to learn to relax and enjoy life instead of working like a dog every waking moment of every single day of his life. Justin had had it since January and still had to call Lance to help him turn it on.

Trace could do it but Justin didn't like to ask Trace to do things like that for him. He suspected Trace of suspecting him of less than optimal skills in certain vital manly arts, and he wasn't gonna do anything to shore up that obviously wrong-headed opinion. His mom could do it but he'd eat the damn remote before he asked his _mom_ how to use it. Lance wasn't around as much as Trace and his mom but that just meant Lance couldn't roll his eyes at him as much as Trace and his mom could, and besides, he didn't even really like TV that much anyway. It was all reality shows and Law &amp; Order. He kept a 19-inch Panasonic on a dresser in his bedroom, with a DVD player and a VCR and an Xbox piled up next to it. For emergencies.

"If," Chris said, still not looking at Justin, "theoretically, if I were talking to you, I would tell you this remote sucks. How do you watch anything?"

"I call Lance."

Chris rolled his eyes.

"Or I go in my bedroom. I have a little set in there. Do you wanna -- wait." Justin stopped and glared at Chris through narrowed eyes. "Why are you not talking to me? I haven't even seen you since I started this vacation, how could I have done something that would make you not talk to me?"

Chris rolled his eyes again and pointedly said nothing. His left leg was jittering up and down like it was getting electrocuted but the rest of him was perfectly still. He was pissed, and it was like Chris, it was just like him to come over to Justin's house specifically to not be talking to him where he'd notice.

"Okay, theoretically, if you were talking to me and I asked you what the fuck was wrong with you, what would you say? Theoretically."

"I'd probably say you haven't seen me since you started this vacation, you fuck. What the fuck is up with that? Three months! I talked you into this vacation, you psycho burned-out freak, I supported you, and then for three months you don't call, you don't write--"

"Hey! I did so call!"

Chris looked down at the remote and turned it over in his hands. "You didn't write."

Justin sighed, and went to sit next to Chris on the couch. He leaned hard into Chris's shoulder and smiled at how Chris's shoulder hit his arm in exactly the same spot it always did. Something tense at the bottom of his chest relaxed. "Did you miss me?"

"Like a long-lost melanoma."

"Awwww." Justin rocked a little and bumped Chris's shoulder with his own. "You miiiiiiiissed me, you miiii-ii-isssed me!"

"Shut up. And quit trying to sing as high as me. You've got a mostly unobnoxious tenor, and it ain't like I'm quitting the band."

"Wow. You _really_ missed me!"

"This month has been very peaceful!" Chris's leg-jittering picked up speed. "I didn't even notice you were gone until Lance started coming around, and then it was just to remark on how nice it was to hang out with a grown-up. He's my new best friend now."

"Right," Justin said, grinning.

"He is. He did my taxes and changed my oil. Crawled under the car himself. He can say 'our fans keep us going' in five different languages."

"Stop, before the excitement kills me."

"He looked really hot in that white t-shirt and jeans and grease all over him."

Justin blinked. He looked hard at Chris, who was glaring at a snagged thread on the faded knee of his jeans like it had said something bad about his mother.

"Uh." Justin blinked again. "So. Is that new?"

"What?" Chris looked confused, which was how Justin knew he was faking it.

"Thinking Lance is hot."

"I don't think Lance is hot. I thought, temporarily, for a moment there, he looked hot. But he's Lance, so no."

"Thinking any guy is hot."

"Oh," Chris said. He picked at the thread on his jeans and shrugged. "That."

Justin groaned and tilted his head back against the couch. Now would begin the week-long process of extracting information from the steel trap that was Chris Kirkpatrick's mind. Chris's story-telling technique, he had learned early on, had an unpleasant flair for drama that required every punchline be teased out of him by friends nearly fainting from frustration.

Justin sighed. "So, what, like, you're gay now. Cool. You could've told me on the phone, though. Or you could've flown out."

"I'm not gay!" Chris smacked Justin on the arm, hard enough to hurt, and jumped off the couch. He paced back and forth in front of the couch before stopping and fixing Justin with a steely glare. "Are you freaking out?"

"It's not a big thing, man. It ain't like you invented it. We're in a whole new millennium. It's cool to be gay now."

"Stop that. I'm not gay. I'm. Okay, maybe I'm bisexual."

Justin waved a hand in the air. "Whatever. You go for guys. So?"

"So? So it's a huge thing, and I couldn't tell you. There I was!"

Justin covered his eyes with the heels of his hands and groaned.

"Shut up. Listen. There I was, alone, and there Lance was--"

"So, not so much alone."

"...and there Lance was, on this little rolly thing he brought over, coming out from under my car and he's all streaked with black and the sun hits him and he's got that hair and those eyes and those muscles, all right in front of me, and bam! There it was." Chris shook his head in wonder. "Who actually _owns_ one of those rolly things?"

"So Lance did your taxes, changed your oil, and turned you gay." Justin grinned. "Not a bad week's work."

"I'll pass on your congratulations, you sadistic fuck." Chris stormed out of the room.

Justin waited.

Chris stormed back in. "And you weren't there for me!"

"Chris." Justin hauled himself off the sofa and crossed the room. He put his arms around Chris's shoulders and squeezed. "Dude, if I'd known, you know I would've come back and talked you through it. I'da got you drunk and painted your nails and curled your hair and shit, you know that. I would've wanted to be here for you. I just didn't know."

Chris sighed into Justin's neck. "Life sucks."

Justin squeezed a little harder.

* * *

So, Chris was gay and Justin thought that was fine. It figured, really, when Justin thought about it. Even if Chris hadn't been gay it would've bugged the hell out of him that there was a downtrodden counterculture he couldn't belong to. Being gay was a really Chris thing to do.

He did it in a really Chris way, too.

"Are you ready?"

Justin pushed his sleep mask up onto his forehead and blinked at the bright sunlight pouring in through his windows. There was a weird quality to it that he didn't like. It was like the way they screwed with the lighting in sci-fi movies to make things look weird and alien. "What?"

"C'mon, there's a parade. I told you about this. You said you wanted to go." Chris bounced on the balls of his feet in a rhythmic up-and-down that made Justin's eyes glaze over. He was halfway to his happy place when Chris slapped him hard on the chest.

His eyes flew open. "What?"

Chris sighed, and pushed past him. "You can't go dressed like that."

Confused, fuzz-brained, Justin squinted up at Chris. "What's wrong with the sun? Is there gonna be a storm or something?"

Chris looked back just long enough to roll his eyes. "We call it 'morning' up here, you fucking Morlock. Have you had breakfast?"

"Chris." Justin shook his head. "There's a thing? I said I'd go to some thing with you?"

"Yes. Yes you did. You said you'd go to the gay pride parade with me."

Justin's eyes widened. "No, I didn't."

"You don't remember your own name right now. How would you know what you did and didn't say you'd do?"

"I know what I would and wouldn't say I'd do, and I wouldn't say I'd do that, I promise. Look, it's okay that you're gay, I love that you're gay. Sincerely, it just makes you that much more worthy of my childlike hero-worship of your bad alternative self--"

"Great! Then let's go." Chris hauled on his arm, and Justin was half on the bed and half in the air, dangling from Chris's hand like a puppet.

"Ow. Let the fuck go -- Ow! Fuck!"

"You said let go."

"I didn't say drop me on my fucking _head_!"

"Well, what did you think was gonna happen? Did you think little pixies were gonna float your ass back onto the bed?"

Justin groaned. "I'm gonna wake up. Any second. And it's gonna be after one, and I'll be late for something, but there'll be orange juice and cereal downstairs, and coffee, and a newspaper--"

"Yes. Except, no, you're awake now and there's just me and a Gay Pride Parade. Come _on!_"

"Careers!"

Chris paused at the door, frowning. "What?"

"That's, yeah. Okay, that's what I'm saying! I love that you're gay, but we have careers, man, and those careers are dependent upon us being semi-available to women. Look, if you wanna donate some obscene amount of money to PFLAG or whatever, I'm there, man, I'll match you dollar for dollar. But I am not gonna tank your career and mine by jumping on a rainbow float in the middle of freakin' LA."

Justin folded his arms and leaned back against his bed. "I'm sorry, man, but really, seriously. No."

* * *

It wasn't that bad. It wasn't in LA, for one thing; it was three hours out, in a town Chris couldn't even point to on a map, that Justin was certain would vanish back wherever it came from as soon as they left. And as rainbow floats went, it was actually pretty understated. Kind of pastel, and way at the back, and most everybody had gone home by the time they got there. Chris didn't even make them ride it, just wave and cheer a lot when it passed by. Justin had on shades with pitch-black lenses, each roughly the size of his entire face, and a giant fishing hat pulled down low over his ears. He didn't wave.

It was fine for Chris, with his blue chess-geek button-down and his chinos and his loafers. He had his hair smoothed down and his glasses on and his beard neatly trimmed. He had his sleeves rolled up to his elbows and his hands dipped casually into his pockets. Chris wasn't gonna get recognized; the cute-normal-boring-guy vibe was so strong, Justin was scared Chris might ask for his autograph. No, if anybody's trademark, manly, unmistakable jawline made it onto Access Hollywood, it was gonna be Justin's.

"Is it over yet?"

Chris threw him a withering glance, and kept waving.

"How are you not sweating like a pig in that get-up? I'm melting, man, there are bits of me oozing into my socks. Show some sweat marks at least, for the love of all that's good and decent in the world. What, gay people don't sweat?"

"If I'm the one who's queer, how come you get to be the fucking pansy? A little support, Justin, that's all I'm asking."

Justin yanked Chris down beside him. "Okay, first? Don't say my name. In fact, dude, don't ever say my name again. Erase my name from your memory. Second, I'm sitting here on this bench next to a gay float in a gay parade with my gay best friend wearing a gay as hell pink hat, so don't you even think about coming off all, poor me, I'm a tragedy in pale blue ten-percent-cotton-blend. Nobody's gonna buy that shit."

Chris went a little pink around the cheeks. Justin was pleased to see it clashed with his shirt and made him look a little less beige.

"That's right," Justin said smugly. "This is me, and this spot here?" He pointed at his feet. "This is the moral high ground, yo."

Chris shoved into him sideways. "Oh, yeah? Well--"

"What?"

"That's." Chris coughed, and looked down at his loafers. "Well."

"Chris, _what_?"

"Just. You know, thanks. And stuff. "

Justin snorted. "Whatever, dude. Like I'm not gonna be here to look out for your pale flabby ass when the fans recognize you and start fighting over who gets what part."

"I really love you." Chris rubbed at his eyes, then at his nose. "Quit thinking about my ass."

Justin looked away. With Chris all serious and sweet and stuff, dressed like he was gonna bust out a slide rule any second, Justin didn't trust himself not to laugh. Or something. He shrugged, and adjusted his shades so he didn't quite have to look. "I love you too. Quit crying, you big baby."

"Shut up." Chris grinned and looked Justin in the eye and he wasn't actually crying, not really, but his eyes were pretty bright.

Justin looked into them and felt, for just a second, kind of dizzy. He wasn't sure Chris's eyes had always looked like that. Justin blinked, and blinked again, and Chris said, "What now? Am I being too emotional? Am I flaming? What! I'm just the same as I was when you didn't know, damn it. Jesus."

"Well, you're dressed better." Justin smirked, and pretended for all he was worth that he wasn't thinking Chris was really cute. He didn't want to hug him, or hold his hand. Not at all.

Chris sighed. "Oh, for -- you know what? I'm going home."

Justin stopped him. He reached up and patted Chris's shoulder awkwardly. "Look, man, you're not gonna freak me out, okay? No matter how many outfits you buy from the Gap. I get it, you're gay, I support you, I'm still your best friend." Justin sighed. "Can we please go home now?"

"That hat, man." Chris sniffled a bit, and tugged it down over Justin's face. "That's actually a pretty good color on you."

The pat turned into a shove. "Fuck _off_."

* * *

"I'm thinking of changing my name." Chris leaned back against the couch and closed his eyes. The remains of lunch were scattered over the coffee table in front of them, McDonald's and Heineken and what used to be a tub of Oreo ice cream.

"Riiight."

"Like, legally."

Justin said, "No."

"Dude." Chris opened one eye and glared. "I don't think you can stop me."

Justin ran his eyes up his own body, and down Chris's. He smirked. "Oh, I think I can."

Chris rolled his eye, and closed it again. "Christopher Kirkpatrick. It's got kind of a ring to it, don't you think?"

Justin scrubbed a hand over his scalp and frowned. "Well. Okay, yeah. But it's pretty much the same ring it's had for the past fifty years or so."

Chris threw a pillow at Justin's head. His aim was perfect, even blind. "Shut up. And with a K, you doofus. Can't you hear?"

"Christopher."

"Yup."

"With a K."

"Yup."

Justin sighed. "What the fuck ever."

"It's in honor of my new sexual identity." Chris sat up and grinned. He leaned over his knees and waved his hands in the air eloquent of...something... and bounced. "It's also like, for the alliteration, right? KK. I really like it."

"You realize your initials are now KAK." Justin sounded it out slowly out of consideration for Chris's mental deficiencies. "It sounds like a cat getting sick on a rug."

"And CAK was so much better."

"It -- okay, point."

"Kristopher Kirkpatrick. Kris Kirkpatrick. I like the sound of it."

Justin groaned. Now he could actually hear the K. "Stop. Please. Can't you just wear a ribbon or something?"

"I'm keeping the H, too. Cause that'll just look _cool_. Khris. Khris Khris Khris. That way I won't get mixed up with Kris Kristofferson."

"Who?"

"Or Kris Kringle!"

Justin pressed the pillow onto his face and cussed into it, really loud.

* * *

Three days later, outside of a Taco Bell in WeHo, Justin caught him signing "Khris Kirkpatrick" on what there was of some poor little girl's t-shirt. Under the makeup and the parlor tan, she looked about thirteen.

Justin countersigned "Jhusten Thimberlakhe" with a red Sharpie he kept in his pocket for just that sort of occasion, gave her a quick hug, and took Chris's pen away.

* * *

Two weeks later, Chris and Justin were still bonding.

They bonded at breakfast, because at breakfast Chris was usually still there from the night before. They bonded at lunch most days, because they were best friends on vacation in the same city, and it was kind of expected.

They bonded at dinner because Chris just kept showing up.

On a bright, sunny afternoon at an open-air restaurant, when their bellies were full and their hearts were light, Justin thought it was safe to broach the subject of Chris maybe, eventually, hanging out with somebody else.

"So, how come you're always over here?" he said. "My couch has a permanent dent shaped like your ass."

"Lucky couch." Chris fiddled for a second with his napkin. "Why? Am I interfering with your search for enlightenment and meaning via Nintendo?"

Justin threw a piece of ice across the table; he missed, but it was the statement that really mattered. "I'm just worried about you, ass. I'm not the only one of us around, you know. What, is Lance seeing somebody these days?"

"Why do I care?" Chris leaned back from the table to look at Justin, his eyebrows drawn together.

"Well, I mean, if you--"

Chris glared and waved him off. "I don't want to date Lance. Lance is boring. Ok, kind of amazingly good-looking sometimes, but there's a lot of competition in that field in the immediate vicinity."

"Okay," Justin said slowly. If it wasn't Lance -- who Chris might've actually had a shot with, because Lance was pretty easy-going and also, well, pretty easy -- Justin didn't know what to do. It wasn't like he could set him up with JC. JC wasn't of this world, and only slept with people he considered to be spiritually advanced. Or really deeply hot. Chris was cute, and from the right angle in the right light he could be really really cute, but no amount of soft lighting was going to make him look like less of a dork.

"Yeah," Chris said. He looked at Justin expectantly. "So, now you know."

"Know what?"

Chris rolled his eyes. "You really are a moron."

"Then enlighten me, asshole. If you don't want Lance, who do you want?"

"Who do you think, Mr. Wonderful? You think I'm over here at your place sharing my _feelings_ every day because I've got some kind of masochistic yen for JC?" Chris shook his head in wonder. "Why do I even bother?"

Justin put down his napkin. Then he picked it up again. After a minute of minutely examining the design along its edges, he snuck a glance up at Chris.

Chris was still watching him. Justin took a deep, deep breath and said, "You. uh. Me?"

"Yeah, I 'uh' you. A lot. I think I have for a long time, you know, without really knowing it? Because you were just really skinny and annoying for a long time, and I wasn't paying a lot of attention. But possibly then, too." Chris nodded earnestly. "I mean, it's not new. It didn't come with you getting to be all hot. It's not just about that."

Justin frowned. "Me being hot ain't new, yo."

Chris waved his hand dismissively. "Whatever, dude."

"Chris. Listen."

Chris watched Justin closely, all huge brown eyes and serious-face. Justin cleared his throat.

A few seconds later, he cleared his throat again and looked up at the cloudless vault of sky. "I think it's gonna rain soon."

"Yeah, I get the weather channel at home. Thanks. It's not supposed to rain in LA for like the next twenty years, but whatever. Were you going to say anything, or should I just--"

"--It's not that I don't, like -- no, sorry, I interrupted, you go ahead."

"_You_ go ahead."

Justin leaned forward over the table, and gave Chris a solid, friendly, but not overly encouraging look. "Okay. If I were like that, then you'd definitely be the first person I -- well, maybe JC, but that would just be all about the sex, you know, so no threat or anything, it's just. But listen, I'm just not into guys, Chris." Justin got it all out in a rush, winced when he replayed it in his head, and then put on his best firm-but-caring-and-sympathetic face. "I'm sorry, man."

Chris had started nodding halfway through the speech, and kept nodding. "Right."

"So."

"So."

"You're okay?"

"Oh, I'm fine." Chris kept nodding.

"We're going to be good still? After. I mean, with."

"Yes," Chris said firmly. "Okay, no. No, not really, because here's the thing. How do you _know_ you wouldn't be into it?"

Justin blinked. "Chris, I'm straight. That's how I know."

"But how do you _know_ you're straight?"

"How do you know you're not?"

"Slept with Lance."

Justin stopped breathing. "You. What?"

Chris grinned. "That little rolly thing seriously fucked up my back, but yeah. Lance was _really_ convincing."

* * *

Justin held out. He held out as long as he could, as long as he thought he could reasonably be expected to when all his friends were dead set against him. Even his mother had hinted that she'd be open to any new information he might care to impart.

When Trace answered his three-page dissertation email on the topic of _Why Justin Doesn't Have To Sleep With Chris _ with the words 'go 4 it!!1!' and addressed it to Justin Kirkpatrick, Justin caved.

When it was just Chris, he was reasonably secure in his belief in his own heterosexuality. When it was Chris, Trace, and his _mom_ lined up against him, it was time to admit he was maybe a little bit gay.

Especially since he actually did think Chris was kind of hot. And funny, and smart, and sweet in that weird way that always seemed to involve insults and hitting. Which was, when Justin thought about it, also kind of hot.

He didn't mind it as much as he thought he would. He watched some videos for practice, with the lights off in his bedroom and one hand quick and convincing under the covers. The more he practiced, the less he minded it. Anyway, he reminded himself, it was better to be gay than in denial. Gay seemed like a hell of a lot more fun.

When he felt he had a strong grasp of the basics, Justin invited Chris over, casually, in the course of a perfectly normal conversation. It was the kind of conversation they didn't really have much anymore, what with the unrequited longing issue and Chris's repeated insistence that talking to Justin was now a painful, heart-rending process devoid of any real hope or meaning.

This time, Justin waited for the speech to wind down and said, "So, are you coming over or what?"

"No," Chris said stiffly. "My affections are not to be trifled with."

"I'm not trifling!" Justin shouted, "I'm trying to have sex with you!"

"I'm sorry, that option is no longer available to you at this time."

"That is so unfair. Now I'm over here all almost gay, or trying to be, and the object of my gayness won't even come over and comfort me. Dude, I went to a gay pride parade with you. Where's your sense of fair play?"

"Awww," Chris said snidely. "Poor you, all dis-gender-oriented and no idea what to do."

"I know exactly what to do, you fickle little freak" Justin yelled, and slammed the phone down into its cradle.

* * *

But then Lance wouldn't sleep with him.

"I'm sorry, Justin," he said, for the fifteenth time in as many minutes. "I'm really really sorry."

And fuck if he didn't _look_ sorry, with his eyes all big and green and watery and his hair mussed every which way, scrunched into a corner of a brand new off-white Italian leather sectional.

"You slept with Chris," Justin said sullenly, trying to hang onto his mad.

"Chris wasn't with anybody."

"No, he was just all newly gay and confused and you took advantage of him!"

Lance smirked. "Someday I gotta hear that story the way he tells it."

"Well, look, _I'm_ not with anybody. Chris totally turned me down. So now I'm all newly gay and probably a lot more confused than he ever was and you should sleep with me, damn it, it's only fair."

"If you're still 'not with anybody' after a month, J, come back, and I will totally lay you out and lick you top to toe. But there's a code, you know? Right now, you've got Chris-sign all over you."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Lance shrugged. "It's kinda like a glow."

"That's anger, dude."

Lance shrugged again. "You're dating Chris, _dude_. That's about what I'd expect it to look like."

* * *

Back at square one, Justin took refuge in the first art he'd ever perfected: Lying. He pulled JC into it, because if anyone in the world was equipped to contend with a sudden onslaught of gayness, that person was JC Chasez.

JC called Chris, on speakerphone, with Justin hovering nearby. Giving Justin a slightly premature thumbs up, he said, "So! I hear you're trying to turn Justin gay."

"I am not!" Chris growled into the phone, making JC laugh. "Did he tell you that? I am so kicking his ass. I've totally backed off! I've left him completely alone!"

"Ahhh," JC said slowly. "So by depriving him of his favorite support structure, you're hoping he'll just kind of fall into gayness as a way of getting you back into his life."

Chris sighed. "I just don't get why it's taking so long."

"Not everybody comes to terms with their sexual identity as early in life as you did, Christopher."

"Shut up. This isn't about me. This is about Justin and his infantile refusal to admit how bad he wants my ass. Stay with me."

"I'm just sayin', dawg. Cosmically speaking you found out other guys had dicks like five seconds ago. You just gotta slow down a little and let Justin get on the bus."

"I have slowed down. I have _stopped_. I go any slower I'm gonna be going backwards."

"You need to talk to him." JC looked up to check with Justin, who nodded encouragingly. "I called him earlier, man, and he was really broken up. I think he was crying."

There was a long silence down the phone. Justin stared at JC, eyes wide. He was just about to say something when Chris said, in a very small voice, "He was crying? Are you sure?"

"He said he tried to talk to you and you shut him out." JC sighed dramatically. "That's cold, man. He's your best friend."

Another silence, and the slow, high hiss of an empty line. "Chris?" JC said then after a few seconds, "Yo, Chris!"

Chris was gone. Slowly, Justin started to grin.

* * *

JC greeted Chris at the door. "Hey, man."

Chris blinked. "What are you -- I thought you were at home!"

Justin came out of his bedroom, dressed only in a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. "JC's here to keep you honest," he said. "In case you were to try making a run for it."

Chris glanced from Justin to JC, then back again. "Why," he said suspiciously, "why would I be running, exactly?"

Justin grabbed Chris by the arm and pulled him toward the stairs. Chris was starting to look panicked, his eyes wild and rolling. "Let go of me. Let go let go let go--"

"Nope." Justin shoved him into the bedroom, and closed the door behind them. "Strip down. We're going to bed."

Chris didn't move. "No, we're not."

"Yes, we are."

"No, we're not."

Justin huffed impatiently and glared. "We are, too. You said you wanted to!"

"Well, I don't! I'm over you, I'm totally over you." Chris darted to the left to get around him, but Justin was too fast for him. He grabbed Chris by the arm and yanked him further into the room.

"Of course you want to," Justin said calmly. "This whole thing started because you wanted to."

"Not like this." Chris waved his arm angrily at the bed, and kicked out at Justin's foot just to be sure the message was clear. "Not as like. Deterrence, or something."

"How can it be deterrence? I'm not deterring a damn thing. I'm caving in. You wore me down!" Justin spread his arms wide and offered himself like an all-you-can-eat sequin-and-sex buffet. "Let's get this thing over with."

Chris glared. "I'm not having sex with you under these conditions. There would be repercussions, man. Like, vast, incomprehensible repercussions! It's not just about sex, and, like, anyway. You're just trying to get me to be out of love with you so I stop wanting you to be in love with me and making you all twitchy and shit."

"Chris, there is no possible way I could love you any more than I do right now. You're a living testament to my love for you, man, because I surely would have paid someone to kill you long before now if I loved you any less."

"Dude. You'd hire it out?" Chris blinked, frowning. "That's harsh."

Justin groaned and looked up at the ceiling for divine advice. The ceiling didn't have any, and Justin wasn't about to petition God for answers about gay sex with his idiot best friend, so he was pretty much on his own.

He pulled off his shirt.

Chris took a step back. "What. Um. What are you doing?" His voice went up an octave. "Stop that!"

"I'm getting naked," Justin said, as calmly as he could manage. "And then I'm getting on that bed over there," he jerked his head bedwards, "and then I'm having me some sex. You can leave, you can watch, you can join in, whatever. I'm just alerting you to the schedule."

"I'm leaving!" Chris shouted, and stomped over to the door.

"Fine." Justin started on his pants.

"Right now, dude, I'm leaving. You can stop doing that. I'm on my way out."

"If the door was a snake, it woulda bit you."

"Justin!"

"What?"

"Put your clothes back on! There could be. What if there's a horde of fans on the other side of this door waiting to pounce on your pale, skinny, naked ass? What would you do _then_, huh?"

"Fire my security and buy a new alarm system," Justin said, grinning. "But first, I'd probably sign a few autographs."

* * *

So they had sex. Justin did it because he was fairly sure he was gay and fairly sure Chris did, in fact, still want to. Chris did it because Justin finally pissed him off enough to get him naked.

Naked and intense, with a look on his face that Justin had never seen on anybody's face before. He watched Justin finish undressing with his lips parted, small white teeth clenched as tight as the fists at his sides. He looked equal parts excited, scared, and mad, and Justin had to remind himself firmly that Chris was very skittish and likely to bolt if Justin, say, attacked him.

The plan was to stay cool and uninvolved until Chris 'persuaded' him to give in and have wild hot sweaty man-sex on Justin's clean white sheets. It was a stupid plan, but Justin was prepared to stick with it until Chris kissed him, standing right beside Justin's bed, in front of an open window.

For five seconds, maybe ten, Justin stayed cool and uninvolved. It lasted until Chris's hips pressed into his, and Chris's fingers trailed down the path from his breastbone to his navel. At that point things directly below his navel got really interesting.

"Fuck," Justin said, and hauled Chris in against his chest. He didn't even mean to do it; his arms did it without ever consulting him. He opened his mouth for Chris's tongue and he didn't plan that either, but the result was exactly what he wanted. Chris's body was hot against Justin's, hot and mobile.

Somehow, it was the way Chris's skin smelled exactly like Chris but _more_ that made Justin fall back onto the bed and spread his legs like he knew what he was doing.

Chris came down after him, heavy and warm.

* * *

Later -- possibly hours later, Justin wasn't entirely sure -- he staggered out of his bedroom and dragged his spent, boneless body into the living room. He'd given up on his shirt buttons when he ran out of holes halfway down. His jeans had somehow widened at the waist and no longer reached his ankles. Under his clothes, he felt badly put together, loose at the joints and wobbly in the middle.

JC was spread out on the couch, bouncing his head to whatever was on his cd player. When he saw Justin, he sat up and and pulled his headphones off. His eyebrows flew together, and he reached out a steadying hand.

"Justin? Man, what happened? You okay?"

Justin sank onto the couch beside him. His body still felt lax and trembly, like he'd run a marathon with fifteen orgasms at the end of it. "Dude," he said weakly. "That was not my best idea."

"Awww." JC beamed at him. "Are you in your happy place?"

Justin grinned. "The whole world is my happy place." His smile faded a little. "JC?"

"Yeah?"

"I think I'm _definitely_ gay now."

JC laughed. He leaned over and ruffled Justin's hair. "Sure, Justin. Now you're gay. After all your years as a model of heterosexuality for us all."

"Does this make me -- like, I know it doesn't really change anything, but."

"Everything feels different?"

Justin nodded. "Bigger, I think. Weirder, definitely."

"It's a big, weird world, J. That's nothing different. That's just same old, same old."

"I don't really feel any different." Justin thought about it, then nodded. He felt good, but not really different at all.

JC slung an arm around his shoulder and scrubbed at Justin's head with his knuckles. "Honey, I wouldn't really expect you to."

* * *

Assured that Justin hadn't actually been killed by Chris's mad skillz in the sack, JC took his CD player and a six-pack of Justin's beer and headed home. When Chris woke up and wandered out of the bedroom, he found Justin still on the couch, staring off into space.

"You okay?"

Justin blinked. "Me?"

"Uh, yeah." Chris shrugged. "You."

"I'm perfectly okay. Why would you think I wouldn't be?"

"You're wearing my clothes," Chris pointed out. "Plus, you kind of fled the scene of the crime. I can only assume that we're going to have to go through a round of who hauled who into whose bedroom and told him to proceed with the sex, so let me just say up front: You, me, yours, and I was only following orders. If you're gonna have some kind of straight-boy virginal freak-out, well, I don't want to have anything to do with it." Chris hunched his shoulders in at the end of his speech and glared down at the floor. "Except, well, if you need me."

"Lance says we're dating," Justin said. He looked up at Chris and reached out for his hand. "Are we dating? Because after that, man, I don't think I want you exploring your new lifestyle with anybody else."

Chris let himself be pulled in until he stood between Justin's legs. "Lance has some weird ideas about dating..."

"Yeah." Justin squeezed Chris's legs with his knees. "Like, he says if we're not together in a month, he'll be willing to sleep with me." Justin grinned, tugging at Chris's hand. "That'd be pretty hot, don't you think?"

Chris sighed. "You're a manipulative little bastard, and I don't know what I see in you."

"I'm sorry," Justin said sweetly, lacing his voice with regret. "It sounded like you said, 'why don't you give Lance a call?'"

Chris shook his head, fought off a smile, and pulled Justin up to his feet. "What_ev_er," he said grudgingly. "I guess we're dating."

Justin smiled happily. "That's just what I thought you said."


End file.
